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10.4 Archimedes
10.4
Archimedes was a Greek mathematician who specialized in geometry. He figured out the value of pi
and the volume of a sphere, and has been called “the father of integral calculus.” During his lifetime, he was
famous for using compound pulleys and levers to invent war machines that successfully held off an attack on his
city for three years. Today he is best known for Archimedes’ principle, which was the first explanation of how
buoyancy works.
Archimedes’ screw
Archimedes was born in
Syracuse, on Sicily (then an
independent Greek city-state),
in 287 B.C. His letters suggest
that he studied in Alexandria,
Egypt, as a young man.
Historians believe it was there
that he invented a device for
raising water by means of a
rotating screw or spirally bent
tube within an inclined hollow
cylinder. The device known as Archimedes’ screw is
still used in many parts of the world.
“Eureka!”
A famous Greek legend says that King Hieron II of
Syracuse asked Archimedes to figure out if his new
crown was pure gold or if the craftsman had mixed
some less expensive silver into it. Archimedes had to
determine the answer without destroying the crown.
He thought about it for days and then, as he lowered
himself into a bath, the method for figuring it out
struck him. The legend says Archimedes ran through
the streets, shouting “Eureka!”—meaning “I have
found it.”
A massive problem
Archimedes realized that if
he had equal masses of gold
and silver, the denser gold
would have a smaller
volume. Therefore, the gold
would displace less water
than the silver when
submerged.
Archimedes found the mass
of the crown and then made
a bar of pure gold with the
same mass. He submerged
the gold bar and measured the volume of water it
displaced. Next, he submerged the crown. He found
the crown displaced more water than the gold bar had
and, therefore, could not be pure gold. The gold had
been mixed with a less dense material. Archimedes
had confirmed the king’s doubts.
Why do things float?
Archimedes wrote a treatise titled On Floating Bodies,
further exploring density and buoyancy. He explained
that an object immersed in a fluid is pushed upward by
a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the
object. Therefore, if an object weighs more than the
fluid it displaces, it will sink. If it weighs less than the
fluid it displaces, it will float. This statement is known
as Archimedes’ principle. Although we commonly
assume the fluid is water, the statement holds true for
any fluid, whether liquid or gas. A helium balloon
floats because the air it displaces weighs more than the
balloon filled with lightweight gas.
Cylinders, circles, and exponents
Archimedes wrote several other treatises, including
“On the Sphere and the Cylinder,” “On the
Measurement of the Circle,” “On Spirals,” and “The
Sand Reckoner.” In this last treatise, he devised a
system of exponents that allowed him to represent
large numbers on paper—up to 8 × 1063 in modern
scientific notation. This was large enough, he said, to
count the grains of sand that would be needed to fill
the universe. This paper is even more remarkable for
its astronomical calculations than for its new
mathematics. Archimedes first had to figure out the
size of the universe in order to estimate the amount of
sand needed to fill it. He based his size calculations on
the writings of three astronomers (one of them was his
father). While his estimate is considered too small by
today’s standard, it was much, much larger than
anyone had previously suggested. Archimedes was the
first to think on an “astronomical scale.”
Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier during an
invasion of Syracuse in 212 B.C.
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Reading reflection
10.4
1.
The boldface words in the article are defined in the glossary of your textbook. Look them up and
then explain the meaning of each in your own words.
2.
Imagine you are Archimedes and have to write your resume for a job. Describe yourself in a brief paragraph.
Be sure to include in the paragraph your skills and the jobs you are capable of doing.
3.
What was Archimedes’ treatise “The Sand Reckoner” about?
4.
Why does a balloon filled with helium float in air, but a balloon filled with air from your lungs sink?
5.
Research one of Archimedes’ inventions and create a poster that shows how the device worked.